The present invention relates to solving ongoing and persistent problems encountered by care-givers when transferring a bed-ridden person from his/her bed to and from another support, such as a gurney, a bath/toilet-type platform, etc., or vice versa. The effort required by a care-giver to physically move a bed-ridden person is substantial and many times results in injury, particularly lower back injury, to the care-giver. Elderly, weak and/or essentially immobile persons who are being treated in hospitals or reside in high maintenance nursing homes are continually transferred between a bed and a gurney or a bed and a wheelchair for a multitude of purposes, such as treatment in operating theaters, therapy rooms, x-ray rooms, etc. Absent effective mechanical assistance, as is presently the case, a care-giver must necessarily physically lift, slide and/or carry the bed-ridden person from his/her bed to and from a gurney, a wheelchair, a toilet chair, a shower chair or some other type of bathroom function device which is highly strenuous. Equally strenuous, particularly with relatively heavy patients, is the seemingly simple task of moving a patient horizontally between two supporting surfaces at substantially identical levels, such as an adjacent bed and gurney. An immobile person lacking physical strength is dead weight and, whether pushed or pulled, many care-givers/attendants barely have enough strength to move such a person. Equally dangerous is the application of physical pushing and/or pulling forces to the bed-ridden person which can, in and of itself, cause physical pain and/or damage, particularly when the bed-ridden person is old, may have brittle bones, etc. Therefore, the necessity of a transfer device which is both care-giver and patient friendly is extremely desirable, particularly if made available to hospitals, nursing homes and the like at a reasonable price.
Mechanical transfer devices for transferring bed-ridden persons are available to care-givers but, for the most part, these require considerable strength to manually operate the transfer device. At the very least handles and/or levers must be manipulated to elevate a bed-ridden person and thereafter considerable strength is required to push and/or pull the bed-ridden person, while elevated, to a particular location, such as swinging the bed-ridden person above a wheelchair, a toilet chair, a gurney or the like. One such transfer device is disclosed in a family of patents in the name of Graham L. Hodgetts and assigned to Barton Medical Corporation of Austin, Tex., namely, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,697,109; 5,819,339; 5,996,144; 6,289,533 and 6,507,963. All of the latter patents disclose a patient transfer device for transferring a patient from a bed to a gurney or from the gurney to the bed utilizing a conveyor attached to both the bed and the gurney. Each conveyor is relatively complex and necessitates being welded to the gurney and/or to the bed frame or being otherwise fastened thereto. A bed sheet is attached to a roller of the conveyor, but as opposed to a standard bed sheet, the bed sheet is necessarily at least twice the width of the bed to enable a patient lying upon one half of the bed sheet to be pulled from the bed or the gurney by rotating the roller, to which the bed sheet is attached, by an associated handle. An obvious disadvantage of this patient transfer device is the necessity of either securing a conveyor to every bed or to every gurney, which is extremely expensive and obviously still involves physical strength to rotate the handle and pull the patient to or from the bed/gurney. The latter patents recognize the seriousness of the problem presented to the healthcare industry, but the patient transfer device of the latter patents is at best an extremely inadequate effort aimed toward a solution of the problem at a high cost per patient transfer device.